


Fourteen Years

by MoonSilverSprite



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Family, Growing Up, Memories, Mental Health Issues, Near Death Experiences, Post-Season/Series 14, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:14:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22699978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: Spencer Reid has been with the BAU for fourteen years. Yesterday he proposed to Jennifer Jareau. Today he ponders on what made him who he is.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Spencer Reid
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Fourteen Years

Fifteen years.

It’s been fifteen years since he joined the Behavioral Analysis Unit. When Spencer sits on his bed, running a hand through his untamed hair, he thinks back. Back to a time when everything seemed so much simpler.

Twenty-three. Just twenty-three when he joined the team. A team that would shape him, mould him into the man he is today.

Because no stretch of the imagination could define Spencer Reid as being a child anymore. He’s approaching forty and he’s still so young at heart. His mother – his mother will always consider him to be her little boy. Whether that’s the schizophrenia talking or not, he has no clue.

He’s worried.

He’s worried about what sort of man he’ll be. He’s been wondering that for as long as he could, even after he grew up and changed into an adult.

The worst events are behind him, buried in his past. Every time one happens, he doesn’t know how it could get worse. But they do.

Sometimes Spencer is between sleeping and waking and he holds the duvet close, pretending that it’s still 2004 and he’s still twenty-three and happy. But then he wakes and it’s not and he’s not a child anymore. He’s a child in a grown-up’s body and that’s not just how everyone thinks of him.

Those horrible days flutter by in his mind.

His dad leaving.

His mother going away.

Tobias.

Tobias…

That day. The day he thought he was going to die. That cold, harsh night in 2007. He did die, Spencer reminds himself. He sometimes wonders what would have happened if he had.

Considering everything bad that happened to him since then…

Sometimes he had wished for death.

He tells himself that he was in no danger, that his team were well on their way to finding him. He just had to provide the key.

But then Spencer realizes how much danger he was really in and it’s all he can do not to cry.

He can’t cry in front of his friends, let alone anybody else. It’s hard for him to understand. He can name places and quote the classics and provide obscure facts. But he can’t keep his mind in one place.

Not since 2007.

He’s like a computer that won’t turn off. Everything is a dizzying blur of mental agony.

Spencer lies on the bed, his head on the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut as he thinks. As he thinks of her.

Maeve.

Would it have come to this moment? Would she have said yes, like Jennifer has? Of course she would have, he tells himself. Maeve would have said yes.

He smiles at the thought. Their children would have been _extremely_ geeky.

That horrible day in 2013, when he thought his life had ended. Hers had, so why wouldn’t his?

Why wouldn’t his?

No. They told him no. Maeve wouldn’t want him to wallow in his own despair. She’d want him to be strong, to be brave, to be the man he wanted to be.

But years of being stuck in the same, endless loop made things unbearable. Every time he grew close to someone, they were yanked away.

Maeve. Aaron. Emily. Then Emily again. Morgan. Gideon.

Gideon…

Spencer is haunted by the past, but he won’t tell anyone this. Even with everything he has been through, it would feel somehow shameful. He can’t bring himself to share the worst thoughts.

You’re not a little boy, Spencer, a voice would ring in his head.

His voice.

_It’s not 2004 anymore, Spencer. You’re a man. Grow up._

Grow up.

He remembers being fourteen. He used to cling onto people at that age, hanging off their arms until he got too tall.

The college dean snapped at him. “Grow up!” he had said.

Grow up.

He has never been diagnosed, but he truly doubts that you should never say that to someone on the spectrum. When he left, the first thing he dreamed of was of himself shouting at the dean, saying all the things he ever wanted to. Calling him a fat pig, saying that he hated him. Spencer had woken up very pleased that morning.

It’s been hard to form friendships, since he doesn’t know when they’ll end.

His twenties floated by. Then his thirties.

He’s not a kid.

Spencer opens his eyes, his latest strain coming closer. The prison.

No, no, no!

No!

He jolts up, running a hand through his hair.

No.

He slowly places his head back in his hands. The silent scream echoes around him.

Spencer knows all of the ways that his body can be broken.

But he knows that his mind, his soul, are unbreakable.

He breathes out a heavy sigh, remembering the last smile he has seen.

Jennifer. She said yes.

Is this where adulthood begins for him? Or was that when he joined up, back in 2004? When he started to be the person that hunts the monsters?

He told himself that he wouldn’t be stuck in this pain forever. Spencer closes his eyes and then, just then, he sees the optimistic, wide-eyed, fairly innocent young man from 2004, bag slung over his shoulder, eager to start at the BAU, armed with qualifications and his bright mind.

What would he tell him, if he had the chance? Would he say the truth? That the little boy is going to grow into a fairly miserable young man with everything hidden inside and addiction, a dead girlfriend and a prison stint waiting for him?

That the best friends he could have ever made are there?

That the woman he would become great friends with, then fond of, then in love with, be his? The woman who will look after him if his mind begins to fail? The son he will make into a mini Doctor Reid is already attached to him? The growing family he will never leave?

That life does have its own rewards?

It’s been fifteen years.

Spencer Reid opens his eyes.

He smiles as he hears Jennifer coming towards the room.

Yes.

Spencer Reid is no longer a child.

He will be the man he has always wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> breather89: You didn't take your meds again, did you?
> 
> MoonSilverSprite: No.
> 
> breather89: Letting it all out again, are we? I see you put in the bit about that b**** of a principal we had.
> 
> MoonSilverSprite: You do realise that sometimes I wish it was still 2004?
> 
> breather89: Of course you do; you didn't even have spots yet. Children always want someone looking after them.
> 
> MoonSilverSprite: Maybe that's why I've always seemed like the girl from _The Bad Seed_? Or _The Good Son_?
> 
> breather89: (under her breath) Unsub all over it...
> 
> MoonSilverSprite: (throws a playful punch)
> 
> breather89: B****.
> 
> MoonSilverSprite: Jerk.


End file.
